Dunbar’s Number

Rick Weber Culture, Economics, Liberty , , , , , ,

One of my favorite ideas in social science is Dunbar’s number: the cognitive limit to the number of relationships our brains can handle. It’s something like 150. That’s about the number of people our ancestors might have shared their tribe with 20,000 years ago.

Our sense of social propriety is tuned to dealing with people within our circle. Economics often seems counter-intuitive because it’s largely about how to interact with people outside that circle.

Here’s the example I use in class:

You’ve got a date tonight. You stop at a florist to pick out a bouquet and start wondering if maybe chocolate would be a better gift. Dark chocolate or milk? Or maybe something else. You think back to your economics classes and realize that if your date had $20 cash, they could buy this bouquet if it’s what they really wanted, or chocolates if that’s preferred. So when you knock on the door, instead of offering a bouquet, you hold out a crisp $20 bill.

What happens next?

If you aren’t dating an economist, you get the door slammed in your face.

So you run back to the florist, buy the flowers, run back, and nobody answers the door. Your date probably went to the bar with friends. You call a cab. When it pulls up to your door, the fare is $20. You just spent $20 on these flowers. You try to pay for your fare with the flowers.

What happens next?

The driver refuses and insists on cash.

So what’s better, flowers or cash? Is your date irrational, or the cab driver? Neither. Both are rational within the context they’re acting in. The driver is a stranger and market rules are appropriate. In this context, $20 is worth more than $20 worth of flowers. Maybe the cab driver wants flowers, but cash gives them the option to buy whatever best meets their needs.

You and your date were trying to cease being strangers. The cab driver is outside of Dunbar’s number, but your date would have (could have) been inside that inner circle. At that point, the signaling value of the flowers would trump the economic value of the cash.

Economics has a lot to tell us about how to behave with those inside and outside of our Dunbar’s number. But that dividing line calls for different rules on either side: the rules of family and neighbors on one side, and the rules of the market on the other.

I’m thinking about Dunbar’s number because I just finished a recent episode of EconTalk where they talked about a classic example from behavioral economics: An Israeli daycare, tired of late pickups started charging fines to late parents. Ironically, this resulted in an increase in late pickups that persisted even when the policy was reversed.

The daycare example is often trotted out to say “see! Sometimes adding an incentive backfires! Raising the price from $0 to $x increased the quantity of lateness demanded. People are irrational!” Of course it only takes about 5 seconds of thinking to realize that we aren’t holding all else equal here. As usual, there’s a lot of interesting stuff hidden in the ceteris paribus assumption.

The more sophisticated interpretation of this example is that attaching a price shifted parent’s interpretations of the norms. In my language: the inclusion of money in that interaction shifted the rules of behavior from those of neighbors to those of strangers.

(Roberts brought up an important point I hadn’t considered with this example: the price was too low. Prices communicate information about how onerous it is to produce a product, and that price told parents “it’s not a big deal if you’re late…”)

More generally, when we’re looking at some social scientific question, Dunbar’s number demarcates a point separating the assumptions we can make about sharing and monitoring–whether it’s about the practicability of communism (the real kind, not the kind with mass murder), corporate bureaucracy and firm size, or the tenability of informal institutions.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Stop trying to use monetary policy for your ideological whims Joakim Book, Adam Smith Institute
  2. The lighthouse never justified state intervention Vincent Geloso, Adam Smith Institute
  3. California lawmakers haven’t learned their lesson on rent control Ethan Blevins, the Hill
  4. Ideas were not enough Mark Koyama, Aeon

(Yes, these are all Notewriters contributing op-eds to professional outlets. Fear not! They’re still around.)

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Espionage and the Catholic Church Aaron Bateman, War on the Rocks
  2. Can globalization be reversed? John Quiggin, Crooked Timber
  3. Getting rich is glorious (scroll down) Pierre Lemieux, Regulation
  4. Africa’s lost kingdoms Howard French, New York Review of Books

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. The rise of millennial socialism Gavin Jacobson, New Statesman
  2. Class is still the defining force shaping our lives Kenan Malik, Guardian
  3. Are the Russians forging an ’empire’ in Africa? Maxim Matusevich, Africa is a Country
  4. Against conservative cultural defeatism David French, National Review

Tariffs and Immigration

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , ,

Pres. Trump announced yesterday (6/7/19), on returning from Europe, that the threatened tariffs against Mexican imports were suspended “indefinitely.” It looks like Mexico agrees to do several things to stop or slow immigration from Central America aiming at the United States.

Well, I am the kind of guy who, on learning that he has earned the Publishers’ Clearing House Giant Jackpot immediately worries about accountants, and about where to stash the dough. So, here it goes.

Mr Trump never did specify how much Mexico would have to do to keep the threat away durably. Two problems. First, if I were the Mexican government, I would worry about his moving the goalposts at any time.

Second, – and those who hate him won’t miss it – absent specific goals, Mr Trump put himself in a position to claim a (considerable) political victory no matter what happens next. To take an absurd example, if the number of migrants from Central America decreases, by 1% in July and August, he will be able to say, “ I told you so, my tariff pressures work.” As the French say, “ Why cut yourself the switches that will be used to whip you with?”

Part of the agreement reportedly, incredibly, includes a provision that those migrants who are waiting for their American formal court appearance will be allowed to so in Mexico, and be allowed to work there while they wait. This sounds amazingly unfair to Mexico. (I sure hope some significant money changed hands in the background on the account of his provision.) Mexican public opinion is not going to respond well to this feature if it understands it.

Another feature of the agreement is that Mexico will allow itself to be designated as a third and “safe” country. This has to do with ordinary international asylum and refugee agreements language which generally specify that an asylee or refugee may not chose his country of destination but must seek legal status in the first safe country he reaches. So, for Syrians, that would be Greece, or Turkey, rather than say, Germany, or Sweden. You know how well this provision worked out in Europe! Even more seriously, Mexico is not safe by any measure: The Mexican homicide rate is more than five times higher than that of the US – which is itself not low. (Wall Street Journal, 8-9 2019, p. A6). Imagine what it will be against an alien, vulnerable population.

As I write, Mexico is already deploying its National Guard on its southern border to impeach passage. This is a brand new force; it has no experience; expect accidents or worse. When this happens, it won’t play well with the Mexican public. The southern border of Mexico is short, only about 150 miles but still, the Mexican National Guard has only 6,000 members, total.

American conservative opinion remains badly confused about the facts of immigration in general. This, in spite of my own valiant efforts. ( See my “Legal Immigration Into the US” – in 37 short parts, both in Notes on Liberty and on my blog. Ask me for the blog’s name via jdelacroixliberty@gmail.com.) On Friday evening (6/7/19), in less than 30 minutes, I heard two different Fox News commentators refer to the migrants arriving in caravans from Central America and that are overwhelming our national processing capacity as “illegal immigrants.” That’s wrong. People who run after the Border Patrol to turn themselves in as a prelude to their claiming asylum are not illegal immigrants. There is nothing illegal about such acts, however you deplore them. And, in our constitutional tradition, nothing can be deemed retroactively as against the law. If we don’t like what the law currently produces, we must change the law. Period.

I used to hope for a wholesale, inclusive change in our immigration laws. I now think this is not going to happen in a bi-partisan manner because there are still many Dems who deny the obvious: We are currently facing an immigration crisis. If the plight of would-be immigrants held in overcrowded facilities or let loose in strange cities without resources, does not move their hearts, nothing will. I now think the administration should opportunistically seek piecemeal reform as may be facilitated by temporary situations. Big change will not happen until the GOP gains control of both houses of Congress, in addition to the Presidency. I believe that equivalent Dem control would not make immigration reform possible because there are too many liberal ideologues and too many Dem politicians who want open borders, for different reasons.

One more thing: Mainstream conservatives and some spoiled libertarians have been clamoring on the social media that tariffs are wrong, always wrong, wrong, no matter what. They point out rightly that tariffs are first and foremost taxes on the consumers of countries that impose them. I am myself completely persuaded of the merits of free trade as a means to maximize production. This does not prevent me from seeing that trade pressures, including the imposition of tariffs, can be used to extract advantages from other countries. In fact, I suspect such maneuvers may often be the best alternative to military pressure. In this case, and temporarily, I understand, Mr Trump’s tariff mano-a-mano with the tough leftist Mexican president, seems to have borne fruit. So, I would like the never-never–never tariffs people on my side to provide a rough estimate of how much this particular tariff action – against Mexico – may have cost American consumers, total.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. White saviors abroad – social doctors at home? Tine Hanrieder, Duck of Minerva
  2. The case against Woodrow Wilson Philip Conway, et al, Disorder of Things
  3. Tragedy, statecraft, and world order Neville Morley, War on the Rocks
  4. “All leaders are constrained by their underlings” Rick Weber, NOL 

Back in Brazil: more impressions

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Economics, History, Liberty, Politics , , , ,

Another thing that calls my attention in Brazil (or rather, in Rio de Janeiro) are the crazy traffic jams. All day long, traffic moves painfully slowly. Really. There is no rush hour. Every hour is rush. The reason is not hard to understand: there are way too many buildings for too few streets and poor options in mass transportation.

Thinking about this, I came across this excellent text. It is in Portuguese, so for those who can’t read it, I’ll summarize. Basically, zoning laws in Rio de Janeiro through the 20th century were completely crazy, following a very nasty relationship between politicians and real state companies. A company wanted to build taller buildings and profit, the city hall would not oppose, especially when a luxurious apartment was waiting for the mayor. The result is that old neighborhoods like Tijuca and Botafogo simply have no space on the streets for so many cars.

But what is the problem with many tall buildings? That’s what New York is all about, and I simply love the Big Apple! Well, that’s true, but NY has something that Rio doesn’t: a great mass transit system. Rio has four subway lines. Or three. Wait, maybe it’s just one. Here is the thing: on paper, Rio has four subway lines, which already makes no sense, since it only has lines 1, 2 and 4. Line 3 was planned but never built. Line 4 is just an extension of line 1, and line 2 trains enter line 1 (!). Although the system was privatized in the 1990s, it is very clear that it maintains a very suspicious connection with the state government. Sergio Cabral, Rio’s former governor, and presently in jail, was married to a lawyer who defended the Metro company. It is also clear that bus companies subsidize politicians who maintain their interests. In sum, Cariocas are hostages to a terrible public transport system that favors a criminous relationship between big companies and politicians.

Rio ends up representing very well a problem we see all over Brazil: people believe this is capitalism. Because of that, they vote for socialist parties. It should be painfully obvious from the examples of USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, and so many others that socialism simply doesn’t work. But here is the thing: people in Rio (and actually in Brazil and Latin America in general) suffered and suffer so much under crony capitalists that they can’t help but thinking that socialism might be the answer.

Hear, World! Socialism failed, just like Mises predicted. But as long as people suffer under crony capitalists, it will still be appealing, be it in a poor neighborhood or a college campus in the US, be it in a poor country in Latin America. The job is not done. Freedom isn’t free. We still have a long way to go freeing people from evil.

From the Comments: Yes, the EU is, and will continue to be, democratic and voluntary

Brandon Christensen Comments, Current Events , , , , , ,

Here’s Barry countering a good, common, anti-EU argument:

Denmark Maastricht Treaty: after a referendum rejected it, opt outs were negotiated and the Treaty was approved by referendum with the opt outs

There was no referendum in Italy on the Nice Treaty, or if there was evidence appears to have disappeared from the net. Maybe it’s a beneficiary of the right to be forgotten law.

France and Netherlands: Constitution was dropped. Replaced by less ambitious Lisbon Treaty.

Italy: same comment for Lisbon Treaty as for Nice Treaty

Greece: Euro bailout referendum The rejection of the bailout package was a referendum held in Greece only for an agreement affecting all member states of the Eurozone. They did not wish to change the terms of the bailout and how would it be democratic for a vote in one state to override the wishes of the elected governments in other states. The elected Greek government was free to choose to leave the Euro if it was not willing to accept the terms for a bailout, The elected government and the national assembly chose to stay in the Eurozone and continue bail out negotiations on terms acceptable to the other states.

All states choose freely to remain in the EU apart from the UK, which has not provided a brilliant example so far of the advantages of withdrawal. When the UK voted to leave, the EU respected the result and entered into negotiations while the UK Parliament failed to agree on a withdrawal plan. States which stay in the Union are to some degree constrained by other stages of the union, as applies to the member states of the USA or the states which make up federal Germany.

Here is more from Barry on Brexit. And here is his stuff at NOL on the European Union. Tridivesh has some interesting stuff on the EU, too.

For a more skeptical take on the EU, try Edwin. Or Chhay Lin.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Land Pierre Lemieux, EconLog
  2. Labor Bill Purves, Asian Review of Books
  3. Capital Hepzibah Anderson, BBC
  4. Knowledge David Papineau, Aeon

Back in Brazil: first impressions

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, Economics, Liberty, Politics , , ,

After almost two years living in the US, I’m back in Brazil, more precisely in Rio de Janeiro, for a short visit. When I left Brazil two years ago, I was hoping that Bolsonaro would be elect president and that with that things would start to change for the better. I still have hope, but change is slower than I would wish.

Things in Brazil are crazily expensive. One liter of milk is almost 4 reais. One liter of gasoline is 5 reais. Considering that a poorly skilled worker makes less than 2 thousand reais, imagine how much it costs to live in Rio de Janeiro. If you live in the US, just remember how much you pay for a gallon of milk or gasoline. And also how much a poor, very simple worker makes in the US.

But thankfully Brazil has universal healthcare! Only that hospitals have always been terrible here. Seems to me that Brazilian TV has a video that they just play in a loop, showing how terrible it is. Sadly, mainstream media continues to ask the government for better health (and better education, and better services in general) instead of admitting that government-run services will simply never be good.

Brazilians (or at least people in Rio) are also very aggressive. I believe I understand why. Everyone here has been deeply hurt.  “It´s the law of the jungle”. Or “grab what you can and let the devil take the hindmost”. Injustice has hurt these people pretty deeply.

So, yeah. Keeping desiring Socialism! Keep supporting the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Nothing has helped poor people over the years more than free markets. Few things have hurt them more than socialism. Coming back to Brazil, I can tell.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. How the Arabic language spread Barnaby Rogerson, History Today
  2. Post-Ottoman ethnic cleansing Christopher Kinley, Origins
  3. Legal decentralization and the Ottoman Empire NOL
  4. Fear of a gold planet Larry White, Alt-M

The Centre Holds: European Union Election

Barry Stocker Current Events, Liberty , , , , ,

Summary 

There is no populist right anti-EU surge. Voting participation increased. The old centre-right and centre-left in the European Parliament declined but the centre holds with a  stronger role for Greens and Liberals. The European Union is not anti-democratic and does not impose its will on member states. Its decision-making is complex, but that is to achieve consensus, not to eliminate democracy. The EU and the Euro currency are more popular. At least for the moment, the EU’s institutions, democracy, and projects are strengthened.

Turnout

Elections for the European Parliament (the Parliament of European Union) the took place between 23rd and the 26th of May this year. The official results can be found here. The turn out was the highest since 1994 at 51%. This is higher than for the US Congressional Elections of last year, though that was the highest turnout in an ‘off  year’ (a year in which the President is not up for election) for over a century. There is no equivalent figure to the President of the United States in the European Union. Roughly speaking the US President is equivalent to a combination of the President of the European Commission and the President of the European Council, neither of which are directly elected, and have a tiny bureaucracy compared with the machine of the United states federal government, at their service.  There is no reason then for European Union elections to generate as much voter participation as US elections when the President is elected. Even so, such elections in the United States have only generated marginally more participation than EP elections, 55.5% in the 2016 election. It seems reasonable to conclude that the European Parliament has had some success in establishing itself as a representative institution, even compared with an elected body as old as the Congress of the United States.

Political Groups in the European Parliament

The European Parliament is mostly composed of Members (MEPs) who sit in transnational political groupings, which usually have a transnational party, essentially serving as a framework for co-operation between national parties. The political groups in the European Parliament are prone to change in their political boundaries and composition, but the four biggest groups have existed in a mostly stable way over multiple elections. They are:

  • European People’s Party (EPP, also referred to as Christian Democrats, centre-right),
  • Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D, often referred to as the Socialists, centre left),
  • Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE, also known as the Liberals, containing classical liberals, left liberals, various moderates and centrists),
  • Greens/European Free Alliance (G/EFA, often referred to as the Greens, left leaning environmentalists plus leftwing regionalists).

The other groups, which have been less stable so far or have not existed for very long are:

  • European United Left-Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL, left socialists, communists and left-wing greens),
  • European Conservatives and Reformists (Eurosceptic right),
  • Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD, Eurosceptic right and centrists),
  • Europe of Nations and Freedom (EFN, nationalist right).

Results 

I take results from here, focusing on percentage of seats as the easiest way to understand  the proportional support of these groups both within the EP and the EU electorate. It makes comparison with the last Parliament (elected in 2014) easier as the number of seats has slightly increased (from 749 to 751) and most importantly because defections, expulsions and reconstruction within and across groups means that a comparison with the seats for political groupings of the 2014  parliament at the end of its term is easiest. Percentage of seats in the outgoing EP in brackets.

  • EPP 23.83 (28.84)
  • S&D 20.37 (24.70)
  • ALDE 13.98 (9.21)

(This result relies on assuming Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance list in France and and the Save Romania Union will join ALDE though this has not been confirmed. It does seem overwhelmingly likely. )

  • G/EFA 9.85 (6.94)
  • ECR 8.39 (10.28)
  • ENF 7.72 (4.81)
  • EFDD 7.19 (5.61)
  • GUE/NGL 5.06  (6.94)

(the remainder is composed of non-aligned MEPs)

Stories and Trends

The big story in the build up to the election was whether there would be a populist right/eurosceptic breakthrough. The political groups that could be classified as such are ECR, ENF and EFDD. Their total at the end of the 2014 Parliament was 20.7%. Their total now is 23.3%. There was a swing in this direction, but only of 2.6% of seats which is a good deal less than a breakthrough. It is a long way short of the 30% which might have enabled them, presuming they could co-ordinate, to block the EP from progress in the wrong direction, from its point of view, though the way committee memberships and chairs are distributed. GUE/NGL is sometimes classified as left populist/eurosceptic, though it contains a variety of views. It fell back and if we add it to the right-wing eurosceptic seats, we still only get a total of 28.9%. There is little prospect of the right-wing groups co-ordinating closely and none at at all of close co-ordination of these three plus GUE-NGL.

The big story as the results came in was less the right-wing eurosceptic swing than the swing within the groups which support the EU with as much power as it has now, or movement towards more EU powers.

There was a notable shift from EPP and S&D to ALDE and G/EFA, so from the centre-right and centre-left to the liberal centre, greens, and regionalists.

Generally speaking the EPP has moved from previous domination by a grand coalition of EPP and S&D to  a more fragmented or pluralist situation in which a centre ground, pro-EU middle ground requires ALDE for a majority and is also likely to bring in G/EFA, with the place of the Eurosceptic right consolidated.

The Liberal swing is largely based on Liberal Democrat success in the UK and the new Macronist list in France. The Green swing is based in northwestern Europe. S&D remain comparatively strong in Spain and Portugal, with a good result in the Netherlands. ENF is dominated by the League in Italy and the National Rally in France. ECR is dominated by PIS in Poland.

Traditional centre-right and centre-left parties had very bad results in France and the UK. The radical and populist left has fallen back, particularly in France, Spain, Greece, and Ireland.

Misunderstandings

Despite what some reporting might lead you to believe, hard Brexit did not win in the UK and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally did not have a big success in France. The Brexit Party was the single most popular party in Britain, but even if its vote is combined with the United Kingdom Independence Party (from where its leader Nigel Farage came from), the no-deal hard Brexit vote (33.8%) was distinctly less than the combined vote for second referendum and remain supporting parties (39.8%): Liberal Democrats, Greens, Change UK, Welsh and Scottish Nationalists, Alliance Party (Liberal Democrat partners in Northern Ireland). The European trend for the traditional centre-right and centre-left to collapse was heightened by the inability of both the Labour and Conservative parties to find a clear direction on Brexit and achieve internal unity on the issue. UK participation in the election was the result of the failure of the pro-Brexit Conservative government to find a Brexit policy with majority support in the UK Parliament.

In France, despite transforming the National Front into the National rally with the aim of broadening support, Marine Le Pen lost ground compared with the 2014 European election. National Rally was slightly ahead of Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance list, but given Le Pen has not increased her base and given that Macron is clearly ahead of all non Le Pen forces, it is likely that the next Presidential election in France will be between Le Pen and Macron again, with another victory for Macron.

Democracy, Law, and Bureaucracy in the European Union

Two ideas circulate widely about the European Union that cannot both be true, though the same people often state both. 1. The EU Parliament has no power. 2. The European Union imposes over-regulation and bureaucratisation on member states to an oppressive degree. As the European Parliament’s main role is as co-legislator in matters of regulation, it is a major actor in this issue. It co-legislates on regulation with the European Council, an assembly of government  ministers from member states varying according to the policy area in question.

The European Council and the European Parliament act under the direction of the Council of the European Union, which is composed of heads of governments of member states and the heads of EU institutions. The European Commission drafts legislation. It has the sole power to initiate legislation, but only under the direction of the Council of the EU and with the agreement of Parliament and the European Council.

Despite what is frequently assumed, the Commission is not an oligarchy of unaccountable permanent civil servants commanding a vast expensive, complex bureaucracy. The Commission is nominated by member states and is very largely, if not entirely, composed of commissioners who have been elected politicians at a senior level and not civil servants. The Commission has to be confirmed by the Parliament which can also forced the Commission to resign. The Commission did resign in 1999 before the Parliament could force it to do so. The Parliament has the right to suggest legislation to the Commission, and since it can sack the Commission, it cannot be ignored. The bureaucracy of the Commission is no greater in numbers than the larger units of local and municipal government in the UK.

The EU structure of decision making is complex and indirect. It is not anti-democratic rule  by bureaucrats. Laws and decisions are made by bodies  which are either directly elected by the citizens of the European Union or are made up of members of elected governments. The Commission can only exist through the will of elected member state governments and the Parliament. The President of the Commission tends to be the public face of the European Union, though recently that has been shared with the President of the Council of the EU. This public role tends to create confusion and exaggerated ideas about the power of the Commission. Though in EU thinking, the Commission is the civil service of the Union, it also a political body appointed to guard the treaties that have constituted the EU. The role of defending agreed basic law is not obviously an anti-democratic conspiracy, it is surely part of a stability of law necessary to the functioning of any political institution. Clearer lines of decision making would be preferable in some respects, but is difficult to achieve so long as the EU operates on a consensus between member states.

Those who are most hostile to the idea of a fully federalised European Union with strong decision making powers are also those most likely to claim that the EU is a bureaucratised conspiracy against member states, lacking clear and direct lines of political decision making. Decisive decision making by directly elected bodies would go beyond what is politically feasible now or in any feasible future. Such clear decision making would require a far far larger bureaucracy and much more intervention in member states. The EU works by consensus between member states and institutions. Unfortunately at any one time it tends to suit some people to claim that the EU is a conspiracy against member states, or a member state supposedly under siege from other members state, or the Commission turned into some monstrosity of unaccountable power which has no basis in reality.

I would certainly welcome less enthusiasm for regulating from above in the European Parliament and other institutions. The drive to the administrative and regulatory state long precedes the European Union and is a universal phenomenon across the globe of the last two centuries. There is no reason to think the member states of the EU would be less regulatory outside the Union. By creating common regulation, the EU at least ensures that regulation does  not impede continent wide trade.

The EU does things to promote trade that no existing free trade agreement has ever done. It has uniquely achieved a single market in services and human capital (that is labour), as well as goods, over a continent, over hundreds of millions of people. The creation of regulation at the EU level is a necessary aspect of this, which still leaves considerable scope for countries to have a relatively less statist approach, with a wide variety within member states regarding the scope of the state in the economy. This can be confirmed by careful examination of the Cato Institute’s Human Freedom Index.

The Political State of the European Union

Despite fears and hopes of a eurosceptic ‘populist’ right surge in the European Union leading to its weakening and possible disintegration, these political forces have stabilised at less than one-quarter elected seats in the EP. Support for the European Union and for the Euro currency (frequently pronounced dead in the past by sceptics) has increased in recent years. The continuing political confusion regarding Brexit in the UK has discredited claims about the benefits of leaving and have made it increasingly uncertain that the UK will leave.

Participation in European level voting has increased. The EU has been strengthened in credibility in recent years. Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for trade wars, and  bypassing the World Trade Organisation, has undermined claims that the UK could seek a place in the world after Brexit based on free trade with the US. An EU trade agreement with Japan soon after Trump pulled the US out of the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership, which includes Japan, has undermined the idea that the UK would be better off outside the EU in pursuing world trade. Trumps’s tolerance (along with Congress) of an ever increasing federal deficit in the US looks highly imprudent compared with the fiscal prudence imposed by Euro currency institutions and regulations.

Not everything is great about the EU, there are certainly some things the US does better with regard to innovation and regulation, but the EU is increasingly popular and and weakening or breakup would weaken a single market under a unified, predictable regulatory regime. The concentration of powers in national governments is not advantageous to liberty, as the Framers of the US Constitution recognised when they turned thirteen ex-colonies in a loose confederation into components of a Federation based on balance of powers and consensual decision making across institutions.

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. The promise of liberalism in a world of groups Mark Koyama, Areo
  2. Becoming a man William Buckner, Quillette
  3. Choosing your own family Nora Caplan-Bricker, New Republic
  4. Home sweet home (California) Kerry Jackson, City Journal

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Human rights as a troubling neoliberal project Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, Los Angeles Review of Books
  2. Liberals forgot that working for freedom is hard Richard Reeves, Literary Review
  3. Multi-party kleptocracies rather than illiberal democracies Branko Milanovic, globalinequality
  4. The demise of the Gandhi dynasty Krishnadev Calamur, the Atlantic

Nightcap

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,
  1. Clarence Thomas on abortion Ross Douthat, New York Times
  2. Death and the Shadow Docket Will Baude, Volokh Conspiracy
  3. The future of European populism Chris Shaw, Libertarian Ideal
  4. The Mongol Empire’s turn to commerce Bryn Hammond, Asian Review of Books